i hung myself
from your lips
the first time
we kissed,
a transcendent
moment, shining
effervescent
as the sun.

love was the rope
i wound into a noose
on that rooftop.
an audience of stars
looked on, voyeurs
lightyears beyond.

years have lapsed since then,
but i return invariably
to those moments we spent
absorbed to the point of ecstasy
as if time were a flat circle
and i was meant to live eternally
caught between the fragments
of those seconds.

fixated by the temporary transgressions
we permit ourselves
every few months.
revolving like a planet
tethered to its star
by the insistent arms of gravity.
we're partners in crime, stealing borrowed time,
trying in vain to recreate
the first fissures
of a friendship
that fractured our lives
like a fragmentation grenade.

consistently,
i become convinced,
as time moves on
and i remain transfixed,
that maybe i was meant to love
but not be loved in return.

wind me up
like a VHS
tape. tap
play, flay
my skin,
expose the meat
beneath
these rotten limbs.

stop.

trapped in a spider's web
of microfilament
ruptured inside plastic
cassette fractures,
fault-lines
from the wear
and tear
of constant
replay.

rewind.

a favorite scene
that seems to scream
of bliss
but has become
the site of such
anguish.

play.

if only
i could excise
these moments,
tape the frayed
fragments back
together
with scotch-tape.
delete the scene
and set the film
ablaze.

some people are sharp
as shattered glass.
they’re shards
that draw blood
at the slightest touch.
wounded by the world,
dashed by stones
thrown by dying gods.
but piece together
the scattered fragments
and you’ll find stained-glass,
crystalline cathedrals, burgeoning
like a molten parison.

occasionally, i wander aimlessly
into the forests of your irises,
a cartographer
mapping every detail.
here, time flows differently.
somehow milliseconds stretch
to eternities, but it's still
never enough.

rapt, i dwell beneath the trees
and picnic as the leaves dance
and shift in the breeze.
i read Nietzsche, listening  
to the pleas of mahogany branches
stretching out overhead,
desperate to catch hold
of each other's hands
just a moment longer.
coffee streams sing
next to me. i am lost
in your eyes and don't want
to be found.

then you speak,
"what're you looking at?"
the epiphany springs:
i've known more houses
than i can count, but
you feel like home.

depression is waking
with one foot
already in the grave.
a tombstone
with my name etched
into its stony face
is perched
atop my chest.
unable to breathe,
i lay paralyzed
and think,
well, if this is death,
then we'd best
get on with it.

•••

depression is drowning
while the sun peers down,
ambivalent. my fingernails
are splintered fragments.
i've worn weary digits
down to calcium bone
scratching at the icy
underbelly of the surface.
in vain i draw scant bits of oxygen
through the slivered cracks
spider-webbed above me.
the molecules cut like rusty shivs
through my battered lungs,
sustaining my suffering
for just a while longer.

•••

depression is gathering dust
on the top shelf of an oddities shop,
surrounded by the macabre.
while taxidermy goats stare out
with lidless eyes like opals,
i am the thirteenth tarot card,
misplaced and unlucky.
someone forgot to take me home.
tattooed in my parchment flesh
is a skeleton key hanging
like a noose from the neck of Death,
who reads an arcane text and grins
ominously beneath the hood
of a shadowed cowl, beckoning.

there are no rarer bedfellows
than joy and intellect.
mortal enemies—
fingers locked
around each other's necks.
to possess a shred
of empathy in times
like these is to embrace
perpetual melancholy.
i refuse
to deceive
my psyche.
i will not shirk
the weight of reality.
unhappiness is a virtue.

these incidents prove maddening.
i keep catching myself trying
to figure out whether or not
coincidences explain the way
that hints of you are interwoven
in the secret corners of my brain,
binding fresh philosophies with the strings
of new theories, stitched together
like the seams of my favorite garments.

from day one, i knew you and i were cut
from the same cloth. i saw your ears perk up
with curiosity when we first spoke about anarchy.
you doodled idly on the corners of my psyche,
renditions of ripe flowers, burgeoning
at the tips of my fingers.
though, i must say, in a certain way,
it has been a joy taking the time
to expose the treasures locked inside your mind,
like peeling back a fruit
and sampling the sweet juices i find,
an ambrosia fit for a king.

in the myths of the Greeks and Romans,
a Muse was a source of inspiration—
typically feminine—that controlled
the whims of destiny,
made the words of men
dance right off their tongues,
to be interwoven with the myriad threads
of elegant tapestries chronicling stories
of humanity's fate.

is it such a stretch to suggest
that i might not possess full faculties
of my tongue?
that, at the very least,
my mental agility
might be deadened
at times beneath
the empathy that screams
between you and me,
as if we were rogue planets
spinning infinitely
around the same sun.

with our constantly interconnected
strings that sing so eloquently
like strummed scales
on a ukulele,
can i entice
you to hum along
in harmony?

it doesn't seem
all that far-fetched to me
to think the atoms in our bodies
were forged in the core
of the same supernova.
if you don't agree, Listener,
then lean in close. get cozy.
i'd be happy to remind you
how we sync together
perfectly.

i love the way
my name sounds
every time i slip
like a song
off the tip
of your tongue.
there's the slightest
dip in your inflection,
like a whisper
you couldn't quite
bite back.
a reminder, quiet
as exhaled breath,
that i've been here
all along.

who holds the leash
of the pigs in the streets?  
follow the paper trail:
dead presidents
never fail to be the culprit.

it's not who
but what.
the police always
serve and protect
capital and property.
why else would they block
off a jewel store
during a peaceful rally?

they may not be
our enemy,
but they
certainly
aren't our friends.

they are the strong-arm
of the State,
fodder on a frontline
devised by fascist elite.
the boys in blue
with low IQs
are oligarchs' favorite tools
for bludgeoning
dissent and pummeling
free expression.
useful idiots—
truncheons designed
with punishing dissidents
in mind.

we may well be
the 99%, but they have badges,
guns, and a license to ****
emblazoned on the blue shield
slapped on their chests,
stoking overzealous
racists to respond violently,
a cacophony of bloodshed
seems to be the only language
they know how to speak.

smash the fraternity
that acquiesces to criminality.
white men in pressed suits—
who's speculative spending
lead to economic catastrophe—
get off scott-free
while black men are imprisoned
for possessing an ounce of ****.
not even the blind would fail to see
the "just us" system excludes
the majority of humanity.

all lives matter?
only ignorance could present
such a fictitious narrative,
a self-congratulatory hyperbole
disregarding contemporary reality.
private prisons designed for profit,
institutionalized bigotry instigating
a new form of slavery.
when mass incarceration
lacerates our communities
and exacerbates the conditions
of the working class,
the only dignified response
is to stand up, fight back.

we no longer
have a need
for this blatant idiocracy.
if we truly want to call this country
"the land of the free,"
then we must say,
loudly and clearly:
abolish the police.

left to right,
all looks the same to me.
as far as the eye can see,
a cadre of thieves
waiting for their chance.
when our vigilance slips
they'll kick the chair beneath our feet
and leave us hanging
from the bows of a willow tree.

if ever there was a time
to smash windows, burn limos,
and punch Nazis, the moment is here.
you fancy yourself progressive
yet here you sit on your hands, regressing,
playing the hand you've been dealt.
did you forget the deck is stacked?
the House always wins.

it's time to flip the table over.

toss their rule-book in the gutter.
a clenched fist is not just an image
you stick on a protest sign
to appear edgy. the movement
for gender equality is not an opportunity
for you to get laid. fighting the State
is not a weekend getaway.
carve the reality into your thick skull:
people are dying.

don't you see? they want us divided.
we're easier prey that way.
if they demonize the anarchists
and socialists then they can make
the liberals feel safe. "don't be violent,"
they say. "comply. obey. and we'll mete out
just enough concessions to keep
your guilty conscience assuaged."

if we fail to hold their feet to the fire
they'll throw us in the ovens.
the fascists will drag us out
behind the chemical sheds,
pull a burlap sack over our heads,
and won't stop the firing squad
'till we're long dead.

will you sit idle and watch
them drag us away? or will you
get aggressive, stand up to the State
and say, "not today."
don't be a passive participant
in your own arrest. the human mind
is omnipotent, an emancipatory instrument.
we have to begin
imagining a world without gods and masters,
envisioning what it means to be truly free.
resist the corpulence of false democracy
and make the prefigurative dream
our new reality.

a phone call
from area code 772.
Jensen Beach, FL.
a retreat beside the waves.
a refuge built
so far away
to keep you safe
and help you
recuperate.

i slide my thumb across the screen,
busting the chains of my purgatory.
you pause briefly,
right before you say, "Hello, Pearson."
your inflection hangs
on my name,
as if to hold me
in your mouth.
i linger in your lungs
like the smoke
from your favorite
cigarettes.
when you breathe
me out, i hear the sigh
of relief, signaling how much
you'd hoped i'd pick up.

you say, "so,
tell me something new."
a detail i neglected to include
in one of the daily letters
i'd sent to you. absently,
i search for a subject.
anything. but all
that comes to mind
is, "god, you've no idea
how much i've missed you.
it's so good to hear you speak."

five minutes. that's all.
i wish i'd had more time.
i would've used my tongue
to gently ply
your contours
and tantalize your mind.
i once built a home
inside your psyche.
a dragon usurped my throne,
but only temporarily.
i returned with an army
of those who'd die
to liberate you.
so permit me to feed
your creativity,
enabling your addiction
to my free-verse.

don't mind me
as i continually use
my poetry to clean
up the place.
i'll weave you a tapestry
of multicolor. you've kicked
the habit, but you still fancy
the way my lyrics get
your knees knocking,
your body quaking.
you couldn't quit me
even if you wanted to.

so, i'll remain
in the secret places
of your brain, building bridges
across rivers of synaptic gaps
until, one day,
you'll find me spray-painting graffiti
in your dopamine cathedral.
you'll ask, "after all this time?"

and i'll say, "always."
i'll plant new seeds
until i run out of letters
to string together. with each
polyrhythmic twirl,
a dexterous melody
will exacerbate your ecstasy,
each stanza a slick finger
slipping beneath
your skin, leaving you
calling out my name again.

i am a wayward brushstroke,
more water than paint, fading
in color like the skyline
just beyond the reach of the sun.
a peripheral image reflected
implicitly in sepia- tone photographs.
a mirage at the desert's horizon,
illusory and fanciful. i've grown
hoarse from shouting at the heavens,
calling out to a god of my imagination.
i'll dig a mass grave with every word
that makes its way past my parched throat,
iron lungs for tombstones. suffering
eternally, sorrow overcomes.

Tolstoy purported,
"the purpose of life
is to serve humanity."
but an empty cup
cannot fill another
and i've long since
been drained
to the last drop
dry as drought.

cottonmouth, hoarse,
blue-in-the-face
from screaming
my lungs out.
a mime beating
bulletproof glass
until my knuckles bleed
and streak.

three words
bloom like heliotrope
petals on my tongue:
"i love you,"
a refrain on endless repeat—
a broken record
covered in motes of dust,
skipping on the turntable
stuck in the same rut.

an interminable illness
strands us in this terminal.
outcries echo throughout
MCO, a call-and-response chorus
encouraging us, “no hate, no fear!
refugees are welcome here!”

iron bars drop down
caging the tax-free stores
and those left inside.
swine in blue stand guard,
serving the specter of capital,
protecting private property,
leaving us to fend
for ourselves.

we march, a thousand strong,
in solidarity with those across
this divided State,
climb on their tables
and roar into our megaphones
a twenty-first century update
to Pastor Niemöller’s poem:

first they came
for the Muslims
and we said,
“not today,
*******!”

the donkeys bray
and panic
when bricks
fly through
bank windows.
gobsmacked,
the ***** ogle
the trashed Starbucks
and ask,
"but...who will serve us
cappuccinos?"

the elephants intone,
"violence is never the answer"
and neglect to add
that's why they pilot
remote-operated
predator drones:
you won't see those stomped
in the elephants' stampede.
their ***** wars are covert.
peace cannot interrupt
the cash-flow.

as pigs fit armor over
bellies buttressed
by doughnuts,
they stare down
the wolf pack—a bloc
awash in black—
and slap their sticks
in primitive percussion
shouting, "do not resist,"
punctuating the order
with concussion grenades
and tear gas.

the wolves howl back, "no cops,
no KKK, no fascist USA!"
equal parts bark and bite
in the fight for humanity,
solidarity with the least of these,
laughing in the face of the State.
each time the wolves show their teeth,
the pigs shrink back
and quiver in fear,
while the wolves roar,
"refugees are welcome here!"
we will make racists
afraid again.
antifa, here to stay
so long as there remain
Nazis to punch in the face.

i make love with Death every night.

during the day, we go our separate
ways, but she's always on my mind.
after work, we meet up.
same routine. dinner, occasionally.
but always drinks.

she downs a bottle
of Cabernet
with no help
from me.
the red compliments
her dress and flushes
her cheeks with pink.
i just take coffee. black.

afterwards, she needs
a lift home. i'm her dd.
the city lights blur
indigo and violet,
blossoming like flowers
in the pavement
of the night sky.

we arrive. she invites
me to come inside,
looks me in the eye,
says, "i love you."

i believe her,
even though i know
it's a lie.

the minutes hang thick.
while she sobers up,
we roll dice
and tell stories.

then, breathless and slick,
it begins in the kitchen.
gasps come in spasms, pulsing
in tandem with our obsessive—
compulsive—desire.
we continue beneath the duvet.
i sample the flesh between her legs.
she tastes like pomegranate
and bruised starfruit. her sweat
is second-hand smoke. my brain buzzes
from Marlboro Lite cigarettes.

afterwards, we lay over the sheets
as the ceiling fan rotates eternally
overhead, humming a tune we both hear
in our dreams but cannot comprehend.  
her head rests on my chest,
she loses herself in the gaps
between each heartbeat.

wordless, we drift.

when i wake, she's always gone.
the space in bed beside me
has grown cool. jealously,
i wish Death had taken me with her.

her shivers
have nothing to do
with the weather.

i hold her as we sit in the back of an SUV
headed northbound for Gainesville.
she sleeps restlessly, waking
intermittently. breaths short
and forced. her mother sings
pop hits that pour from the radio,
a melody that rings somewhat discordant.

i run my hand
through her hair. still damp.
i wonder,
for not the first time,
if this gesture means
as much to her
as it does to me.

from the driver's seat, a mother sings,
"stand by me when you're not strong,"
but her daughter is asleep and can't
hear the song. i lean over, lips
a hairsbreadth from her ear,
whisper, "i love you,
Lexi." she smiles subtly.

maybe i was wrong all along.

i hope you ******* overdose.

if there was any justice
in this indifferent universe
the H you blew
your paycheck on
rather than your son
would've left you comatose.

i hope you ******* overdose.

no room for pity. cower, coward.
spare us all the trouble.
chase the dragon, get back up
on that horse again.
i pray to god the mud
you smoke coats your lungs
and turns to toxic sludge.

i hope you ******* overdose.

one day you'll see just what you've done.
when the realization hits you
like a baseball bat
smack!
against your skull
and your body flops about
in its death throes,
punctuate the blows
with a bit of prose:
you don't poison  
those you claim to love.

i hope you ******* overdose.

the brook
giggles
to our right
as the mote
floats
between us.

for a moment
that hangs
suspended
like the bridge
we crossed,
i study the dust.

you swear
it's a bug,
but i think
it looks a bit
like a dandelion
fluff, puffed
up by a wish
borne
on exhaled breath.

but perhaps
i'm just
distracted.
as my focus shifts
your sequoia tree irises
come into view.
i could study
the entire forest
framing your eyes
shaped like almonds
and never find
a richer shade
to plant
inside my mind.

we have been deceived.
corralled like tepid sheep,
fattened beef
waiting beyond
the doors of the slaughterhouse.

as pigs lick their lips,
a daemon’s death dirge drifts
listless across the
Atlantic, an erratic dichotomy
corroding rationality—
this executive edict
barring refugees.

caught without a compass,
a flotilla of ships weathering
the elements.
for forty days
and forty nights,
we’ve been lead
two-by-two
by elephants
and donkeys.

demagogues commandeered
the lighthouse, directing
our ark across
scattered rocks.
an armada
of shattered splinters,
remnants of water-logged vessels
we’d hoped to sail to utopia.

caught in the webs
we wove, droves
of drones spewing
bombs across Aleppo.

as spittle collects
on spluttering orange lips,
will we
pause
for but a moment?

collect
our thoughts.
reflect.
history is a shattered
mirror and we’ve pricked
our fingers trying
to piece the image
back together.

there’s a hunger
for blood
refracting in our eyes.
a misanthropy
that smarts and stings.

a recalcitrant population
coerced by a television
rhetorician’s clever
devices, devised
to separate and segregate
during this crisis
caused by our missiles.

there is no moral arc
to the universe. hope,
Hedges wrote, is mania
if it remains vapid
and refuses to address
the depravity of our
physical reality.

we’ve already lost.
just ask the children
barely clinging to life,
covered in the debris
of their former homes.

all that’s left for us
is to bash the fascists.
smash every illusory border
in our heads and hearts.
burn down the walls
they try to build
around us.

overturn the tables
of the oligarchs,
stuff Molotov cocktails
down their bloated throats.
open revolt is our only hope.
we’ll build a sanctuary
in this City Beautiful.

a toxic sludge,
sentient,
slugging towards oblivion.

drown my blood in crud.
stain every cell
opaque
with ink.

why fight
when you
already know
the outcome?

let go.

the struggle
is futile, suffering
is inevitable.
forsake hope:
we're all born
expired.

give up.

death is one
last gasp.
breathe deep.
swallow the muck.
coat my lungs
with mud.

passenger, pass away.

i prayed to god, but
the only one listening
was the NSA.

neither equal nor
free. merely prey. a morsel
wolfed down by the State.

while the donkeys bray
and elephants bluster, the
wolves of Wall Street feast.

and we are their main
course, mortal morsels on a
chessboard of happenstance.

survival? fat chance!
an American Dream, robbed
right beneath our feet.

the penalty for
refusing to acquiesce
is dire indeed.

you could very well
lose everyone you love and
all you cherish.

or you can choose to
refuse to play their game. be
the change you wish to see.

it's clear to all who
won't be blinded by borders:
we're what's for dinner.

if you don't like the
way the table is set, flip
it the **** over.

my heart is heavy
as a corpse
hanging from the State's gallows.
my head is light
as a child
eaten away by her own hunger.

there is a marriage between mental instability
and the fragility of this postmodern world.
anxiety exacerbated like rising sea-levels,
stress fractures greater than tectonic shifts,
insomnia that shakes you from sleep,
an internal alarm powered by the doomsday clock.

fury waits for me, lurking like cluster munitions
on Syrian soil, primed and ready
to rip the innocent limb-from-limb.
bombs bought and paid for
with the cold, hard cash  
pilfered by overlords,
pick-pocketed by white,
heteronormative men
with invisible hands.

caught in a web of poetry
amidst threads i've spun like a spider,
a noose fashioned
from so many strands of rope.
constantly oscillating
between interconnected themes:
tragedy and suffering,
the hallmarks of existence.

showing solidarity
with the least of these
virtually guarantees
an early grave.
to possess
even a modicum
of empathy
in times like these
is to court
interminable
melancholy.

in school they told me to keep politics and cursing
out of my poetry. from elementary education
to post-graduate work at the university,
no one really cared to teach me how to write.
certainly not the pretentious prats
who'd somehow forgotten
our words are swords
in the flesh of the State.

they told us flowery metaphors
were welcome, but critiques of the systems
that would eradicate flowers from planet earth
were choked by the weeds
of existential philosophies,
too much
for the average reader
to comprehend.

i was taught to keep polysyllabic words like "neoliberalism,"
"xenophobia,"
and "corporatocracy"
out of rhythmic verse
because the bourgeoise
want to read something ****.

witness the revolt of the proletariat.
i'm embracing a literacy
anointed in Angela y Davis's legacy,
"i am changing the things i cannot accept."
i'll fight like hell and bleed
the imagery from every stanza
if that's what it takes to show
that all art is always already resistance.

to be an anarchist
in the twenty-first century
is to refute practically every vestige
of contemporary society.
to embrace paradoxes and be skeptical,
practicing critique, an endeavor
Foucault termed "reflective indocility."
liberty and equity in equal measures,
an individual amidst a community.
hopeless, but still fighting.

the answer to the ills afflicting us
are available if we avail ourselves
immediately, parting ways
like divorcees,
finally severing all ties
with this American sham
of false democracy.

the answer is neither on the left
nor the right. we've peeked behind the scenes
and seen the corporate-state is held
on a short leash by the oligarchy,
bound and gagged, nothing but a plaything
satisfying the master-slave binary.

if we're to triumph over the bigotry
rising like seas bloodied by refugees
fleeing the endless wars the U.S. has instigated,
we'll have to get creative again.
dare to dream utopically, living
as if we're already free,
seeking liberty, equality, and solidarity.

so consider this a manifesto of sorts:
until i go to greet death as an old friend,
happily released from daily suffering,
i'll sit at my typewriter and bleed
for the least of these,
then climb to my feet and fight
to take back the ******* streets.

i brushed the tips
of her fingers
amidst the PVC pipe
as we sat
linked together
in lock-down.

our forearms stained blue
from the paint and tar
plastered to plastic,
holding down
the chicken-wire
purposefully designed
to make sawing us out
more difficult.

water protectors
chained together,
risking arrest,
the shackles a symbol
that we were willing
to trade our freedom
to save planet earth
from the 6th extinction.

sweat glued garments to skin
as the sun baked down from the heavens.
even if we failed today
to throw a wrench in the works,
still we rage against the machine,
still we sing our refrain endlessly:

*the people gonna rise like the water.
we're gonna face this crisis now.
i hear the voice of my great granddaughter
singing, "shut this pipeline down."
it's bigger than a paycheck.
it's bigger than a job.
if you won't respect our Mother,
we won't respect your laws.

i can still smell
the fertile soil
beneath my nails.

breathe deep.

inhale the heavy crush
of nature, fragrant
and somber on a frigid
Florida morning.

pulling past-due produce
from the earth
only to cut it up
and return the harvest
once more to the ground
as compost.

i nicked my finger
on a pair of scissors
dicing mustard greens.
i laughed. i’d never
noticed just how red
blood was. today,
juxtaposed
with the Planet’s brown flesh,
i marveled at my own fragility.

for the first time
in what feels like forever
i didn’t ruin
what i touched.

yesterday i flippantly
quipped to a friend
in casual conversation,
"i'm not a nihilist,
i'm just being
realistic."

the weight of those words
sank in today. the prospect
of the grave gave
them new gravitas.
entropy saps our vitality.
eventually, everything ends.

the best we can hope
for is to die before
those we love
leave us.

this morning,
before we hung out,
i read back
over the sexts
we sent
when i caught the bus
home from Atlanta
this time last year.

i'd never thought to
count how often
i made you shriek
that night
(nine times.)
every time i'd read over
that catalogue of texts
i just seemed to get distracted,
recollecting how your
fingers slipped
between your legs
with nothing
save my poems
and silver tongue
to guide their rhythm.

when we stumbled
across Michael Faudet's
***** Pretty Things
mere hours later
in our favorite coffee shop,
i laughed at the irony.
somehow, i knew 1:00am
would find me writing
about that all-night drive again.

when you wake to see
this poem illuminated
on your screen, i hope
you'll grin at my audacity
before plunging your hand
once more between.
i hope you think of me
when you reach the brink
and whisper my name
between rattled breaths
when you *** beneath the sheets.

i was raised
by the greatest
generation.
at least,
that's what we
were told.

we were raised
at your knee,
told stories
of the American
Dream. "work hard,"
you told us, "obey,
consume, and god
will provide
for your every need."

you neglected
to mention
you'd borrowed
our only home,
a loan
you've since
squandered.

like the parable
of old,
you buried
your talent
in the sand—
along with your head.
dormant, you twiddled
your thumbs,
ignored the warning
signs of sky-rocketing
carbon emissions.

when you die
alone
you'll leave
behind a footprint
larger than your
tiny mind
could fathom.
it will echo
in the hallways
of your vacant,
dilapidated mansions.

you stood upon
the shoulders
of gods and giants,
but you gave us
a globe
unbalanced,
off-axis.

now, like Atlas,
we're left to carry
your burdens.
this yoke is heavy
and we are slight.

there's
no future
now, thanks
to you.
only prophecies
of nuclear holocaust,
economic collapse,
and the inevitable
heat-death
of the universe.

i am a pendulum
oscillating between
ostensible antitheses,
elapsing like a ticking
time-bomb.

most days
i want to save the world.
but sometimes
i want to destroy
the entire cosmos.

ball up my fists and break
up the regimes
of bigots, rapists, and racists.
smash the militarists, misogynist
pigs, and Islamaphobes.

but that's the problem, isn't it?
in our self-indulgent belligerence
and fatuous ignorance, we utilize violence
deposing one tyrant just to install another,
eternally entombed in shackles.

i am too weak
to cure this suicidal impulse
and, in my obeisance,
i've stained my hands
red with crimson.

this death-drive sends us
spiraling into an abyss
we wrought for ourselves.
maybe we just want to watch
the world burn.

the ruptures we've torn
in mother earth
are eerily reminiscent
of our own fractured
mental health

and this sickness leaves me bipolar,
vacillating between two extremes:
fantasizing about the end of the world
and simply wanting to **** myself
to be done with this wretched hell.

the survivors of Auschwitz
put god on trial in absentia
and sentenced him to death.
a fitting end
for a supposedly
omnipotent deity
that couldn’t be bothered
to lift a finger.

if the cross was god’s
critique of power
then why is fascism
on the rise once more?
if Jesus died
for the lost sheep,
then why are politicians
evoking his name
while banishing refugees?

where was the love of god
when our cluster-bombs fell
on kids playing soccer
in Palestine
and U.S. drone strikes
stole the lives
of a wedding party
in Yemen?

if god is not surely dead
then he was never real
in the first place.
Stendhal had it right all along:
god's only excuse
is that he does not exist.

but i met a girl
who so loved the world
that she’d give her life
for a stranger in an instant.  
her name means “helper.”
she is fragile as bone
and sturdy as ancient oak.
she is the only tangible reality
in a world henceforth
without gods or masters.

and i’m watching her wither away.

so i petition
the nebulae
watching over
this pale blue dot
not to avert their eyes.
this heroine of mine,
made in the heart
of a dying star,
would sacrifice her life
for the least of these.
but i am selfish.
i want her to stay,
to stand up and fight,
poison-free.

and if the universe conspires
to take her life, then i will find
the tomb of god and bring
him back from the dead
just to strangle him again.

stay with me, always,
through the long night.
help me heal this silent planet.
if god will not love this earth,
then we will.
heal us of our war, our hate,
our addiction.
i cannot abide a world without you.

yesterday, my mind was a landslide,
an earthquake instigated
by platonic fates.
i nursed a headache, reeling
from the repercussions
of unrequited affection
and a planet spiraling
towards complete annihilation.

today, my heart is leaking uranium,
a radioactive time-bomb,
primed to explode.
the nuclear codes
have been plugged in,
the key has been turned
in the ignition.
Houston, we have lift off.

tomorrow is far too late. the warheads
are already en route to their destination.
now nothing can stop our obsessive compulsive
disorder, our pining for the sixth extinction.
from the horizon, i watch the nukes eclipse the sun
and i rage, furious on the precipice of the abyss,
desperate for death's sweet kiss
and the utter bliss of oblivion.

existence is the dream from which we cannot wake,
the entropy that saps our strength,
the antipathy that stokes our hate.

existence is suffering.
this is the first truth
and also the last.

existence is a terminal illness:
i suffer, therefore i exist.
the beauty of life is that it ends.

we are not
who we are
at our best
anymore
than we are
the sum
of our worst
aspects.
we are
what we pretend to be:
misanthropes
possessed of empathy.
walking paradoxes.
amalgamations.
spectrums
in multicolor.

bludgeon our minds
addled by apathy.
cudgel us into comatose.
the sixth extinction
we couldn't be bothered
to prevent.
blind submission
to the tradition
of the truncheon.

throw our bodies
in the trenches,
the mass grave
we dug
with our own hands.
dirt still clinging
beneath the nails
of fingers raking
our psyches.
buried beneath ennui.

cover our corpses,
naked and exposed,
with ten tons of soot
and ash. strike
from the pages
of history
the utter depravity
of the world's
cruelest creature:
humanity.

Prometheus stole fire from the gods
and gave it to us: clumsy humanity,
fumbling fools trapped in our own darkness.

for his crimes against Olympus, Zeus
had the titan bound to a rock, cursed
to suffer daily anguish.

•••

the celosia plant burnt bright orange
in the porcelain fist on my windowsill, fragile and stalwart
all at once: a brilliant symbol of our resistance.

now its leaves fade to a dull pallor, sick
from a lack of oxygen, wilting in absence
of the sun's warmth, starved for photosynthesis.

•••

i used to watch Bob Ross to fall asleep.
but now every stroke of his paintbrush
reminds me of your magenta aura—

an enigmatic glow that permeates your presence.
now i read The Sandman: Omnibus to stave off insomnia,
wondering when and where i first ****** up.

they say god is perfect.
that holds true for me, too.
no concept contains me in totality.
Stirner wrestled with the undefinable:
an indefatigable Unique,
anarchic,
lacking category.
Camus perhaps said it best,
"i rebel, therefore i exist."
i strive to personify resistance.

i find the answers
in harmony with Counterparts,
defining The Difference
Between Hell
and Home:
"i am what i am
and i am an outcast."

an outlaw,
a nobody
akin to Nietzsche,
returning infinitely—
stretched like so many grains of sand
on time's flat surface, orbiting
eternally around the creative Nothing
at half-past 3:00 in the morning.
a singularity,
deconstructing
Derrida's Différance.

a nomad on the margins,
wandering aimlessly,
roaming perpetually
with Deleuze and Foucault,
an astronaut arranged
along the endless frontiers
of an ever-expanding cosmos.

Vonnegut recognized
the periphery affords
a radical view
to the few who choose
to embrace that which cannot be Known.
a zero-sum game
between Death and me,
staving off manic-depressive ennui
if only momentarily.

Death and i converse in the midst
of 3:00am's darkness: the witching hour,
when the veil between this world
and the Abyss grows thinnest.

the Endless approach, swift as quicksand
in an hourglass, silent as a shade
on a moonless eve. they whisper
in tongues mortals cannot speak.

Insomnia's embrace is cold as hoarfrost,
a lost soul looking over my shoulder.
Time wonders, "when you lie alone,
do you hope you don't wake up?"

Morpheus leaps
from the pages of the Sandman,
a phantom from my nightmares,
cloaked in flame and shadow.

"rest easy, friend,"
the King of Dreams
says to me.
"there would be no hell without Hope."

you are an ancient oak tree
an old soul, silently standing vigil
over my balcony.
your branches shade me
as i ponder the intricacies
of the cosmos, limbs outstretched
in a complex web of leaves
embracing unanswered mysteries.

moonbeams peel back the branches to peer
down at you, white light dancing like phantoms
on your skin, desperate to heal
the bits of you cut  
and marred by calloused hands.
one day i'll kiss your scars like the moon
and feel the heat of your bark
pressing warm against my form.

your presence steals the toxins
from the air i inhale, steeling me,
harvesting CO2
and producing oxygen.
i want to breathe deep,
fill my lungs with your fragrance,
a heady high, lost
in an aura of hot pink.

as a chorus of crickets
deign to sing just for us—
the only audience still up
at half past 1:00
in the morning—
i treasure the way your mahogany irises
continually brighten when you look at me.
a symbiosis simultaneously saving both of us.

Christmas lights dangle from the balconies
of skyscrapers off Highland and 50.
the wood of the dock is well-worn,
but firm beneath our feet.
our reflection is emblazoned
on the lake's dark surface over your shoulder,
a still-frame frozen momentarily
like a photographer's snap-shot.
stars wink hazily out beyond the city's smog, lazy
voyeurs surveying the crush of our forms.

those same nebulae must have conspired
to shape our bodies eons before,
back when the universe was first born.
what else could explain
the way you fit so perfectly,
furtively resting your head
in the nook between my neck and chest?

i place no faith in gods,
but distant suns, lightyears away,
deigned to reach
through parsecs of space-time
to smile down from above
as if they'd designed
this moment
just for us
and couldn't bear
to miss out.

the heady scent of Spirit Cigarettes clings
to your woolen sweater,
an incense of second-hand smoke,
shampoo, and Perfume.
i lose myself in an instant,
breathing in and out.
in and out.

i run my fingers through your hair,
lingering at your jawline,
circling infinitely beneath your earrings.
your hands cling insistently to my windbreaker.
wordlessly, we share an unspoken need
to simply be intwined
beneath a waxing moon,
staving off a chill
that has little to do
with this Florida winter.

wise enough to recognize
bliss like this interrupts our melancholy
only temporarily. ephemeral seconds
suspended like phone-lines between us.
but i yearn to share
moments like these,
however fleeting,
mutually wrapped in rapture.

i built god in your image.
an entity guised in black, clutching
half-a-pack of cigarettes, erudite
and attractive, smoldering
as dark matter, spinning incessantly
like a compass distracted by a magnet.

heaven was hanging from your lips,
momentarily adrift, caught like a meteor
en route between two planets,
tethered by tendrils of gravity.

agony
is continually waking
to your absence.
life wouldn't be hell
without hope.

there's a residue of wheat-paste
stuck to our fingers. each time we part
to adorn the concrete walls
with antifa posters, the molecules grasp
for one another, suctioned together, desperate
to hold each other
just a moment longer.

absently, i remember
the last time my fingers were glued
to your contours. you grasped my hand
then, as well. only tighter. held me firm
by the wrist as we eclipsed and i slipped inside
you, both body and mind. between clenched teeth,
a gasp of bliss traipsed
like a brushstroke across your tongue.
you ripened, sticky as a pomegranate
split wide open, slick and sweet and pink.

i will never again be your lover—at least,
not in this lifetime. but tonight
you were my partner in crime
and i like to think that maybe
that counts for something.

the fire of your defiance burnt your name
into my tongue. a caffeinated elixir
scalding as coffee, smooth as milked almond.

a rebel amidst the fray, hair pink as bubble-gum.

i am as scorched as the earth left
in the wake of predator drones, but i yearn
to hold you beneath a moon of blood

and cover this city in red and black paint-bombs.

your eyes are the espresso at the beginning
of a long day, a pick-me-up, a reminder
that human beings are the works of art

wrought by the hydrogen of a hundred billion suns.

buttressed by bisected nebulae
our galaxies coalesce.
soft-spoken Andromeda hurtling
towards a somber Milky Way.
a slow dance plays
to the crooning toons
of Brand New. am i experiencing Deja Entendu
or are the Devil and God
merely raging inside us?

Christmas lights, distant as parsecs,
twinkle every which way we look.
multicolor displays flash
in dizzying arrays, winking in and out,
drizzling like dripping icicles. sad songs
spill continuously from the stereo as we drive
through one neighborhood after the next,
aimless in our contentment.

it's half-past-2:00
in the morning and i'm singing Panic!
at the Disco with (and for) you. i write of sins
and hope this doesn't end in tragedy
as Trade Wind shifts and entreats us
to drift listless as asteroids
rocked to sleep in the arms
of an ambivalent cosmos.

we may all be made of star stuff,
but we both agree:
there's no god who could love this world.
so as we lift crude gestures
to an apathetic sky, we realize
the task falls to us. we must love,
for beauty persists
in spite of all the sorrow.

i am happy to spin perpetually,
elastic and ecstatic in your orbit.
for every now and then your beams of light
filter through my prism and provide
another connection along
our wavelength.

streams of salt and H2O leak
down reddened cheeks and condense
in a golden beard. a war-torn nation,
half-a-world-away, crystallizes clear as dayspring
in an insomniac's screaming and fragile psyche
at half-past-three in the morning.
what strength must a seven-year-old posses
to persevere amidst the perversity of cluster bombs?
munitions bought and paid for with the taxes
we fork over to the United States. will her blood one day
stain our hands with crimson? will her mother's?
a girl who just wanted to read, to escape
the tragedy that inundates our surroundings,
to a magical realm of pure imagination.
where we can summon spectral stags
to save us from the misery of humanity
and learn to disarm those who would harm  
us with the charm, Expelliarmus!
the bastion where i found the first seeds that grew
into a rebellion opens its doors to you, Bana.
there's a crater where your house used to be,
rubble strewn in Aleppo, Syria. but know that Hogwarts
will always be there to welcome you home.

she is a kaleidoscope. an ephemeral array
of dazzling multicolor. an LSD trip,
a hint of DMT, a tableau of ecstasy.
Thoreau once said, "all good things
are wild and free." i penned those lines
in the leather-bound journal i gave her
alongside a host of lineated iterations of empathy—
the first of many sloppy attempts at poetry,
earnest ideas penned to arouse
and amuse my muse.

a hopeless romantic, through and through,
but wise enough to recognize the folly
of storming a castle barricaded by a dragon.
she's going to have to save herself. after all,
she has always been the heroine in her own story
and ****** in mine. so i'll bide my time,
organize and strategize. i'll build bridges
faster than the dragon can burn them.
i will raise an army and wait patiently
at the gates, soulful if not entirely sober.
after all, she is as mesmerizing as fine wine—
and just as intoxicating.

when she chooses to kick down the door
and tear down the walls, i will yield
no ground when the barricades fall.
i've long since abandoned the sword for the pen
and bear only a shield to protect
and secure the health and safety
of the one who stole the stars from the skies
and adorns her eyes with the irises of nebulae.

'till then, i opine.

if i were to ask
if you'd prefer the truth
over happiness, would you take
the red pill or the blue?

in Your Heart is a Muscle
the Size of a Fist, Sunil Yapa
writes, "care too much
and this world will **** you cold."
but there is no greater love
than this: i'll lay my life down
for both strangers and friends.

it's true what the adages say.
knowledge may yet yield power,
but most find bliss
in fictitious myths.
the tyranny of dead deities
cajoles the soulless, self-inflicted
ignorance claps the mind in shackles,
a brain neutered by obedient acquiescence.

there is a somber courage in sobriety.
i'll deny until i die, defying the urge
to idolize a substance that distracts
the mind from misery. i choose to question
everyone and everything,
even if a clear-head invites
utter agony. conviction is certainly
a long and lonely road, but our integrity
is the very last inch of us and—within
that inch—we are free.

so steadfast, i remain
a stone anchored to the riverbed
by the weight of gravity and the rushing
tides eroding me. we'll stand strong
in solidarity with all those suffering,
opposing the specter of dominance, illusory
as a phantom, ephemeral as the passage
of time. i'll unleash an omnipotent psyche,
inspired by the insight found in the closing lines
of a punk and artist's call-to-arms:

pursue what haunts you.

if the truth terrifies you, good.
that is precisely what veracity
ought to do.

come one, come all.
gather 'round, gather 'round the table.
you'll find your invitations—
corporations' coupons—packed
between stories of Indigenous
People, shot by militarized cops in riot gear.
Water Protectors defending the river
while a black snake rears to poison the well.
tear gas, rubber bullets, and concussion grenades
replace ragged blankets draped in smallpox.
a tradition rooted in genocide
upheld in frigid North Dakota.
no need to ponder
the lasting legacy
of a leader who campaigned
on "hope" and "change." a hypocrite
continuing a tradition of colonial
aggression, lying by omission.
just another facet
of his presidential profession.
so drown the news of a fascist's
election in gravy and eggnog,
viscous substances to gorge
yourselves on. Nazis vandalizing
black churches with swastikas
must've escaped your notice.
vacuous, preaching
that Jesus is the reason
for the season, but i think
your savior would flip
your Thanksgiving Table over.
flimsy pretenses of gratitude
discarded hours later, chasing deals
before your stomach could even settle.
your brand new 4K TV
cost you over $4K, but couldn't give you
a clearer picture. you continue to disregard
the smoke signs and headlines,
pursuing the material.
consume!

i was already
teetering
on the brink
of disaster.
watch me sink, an anchor
hurled into choppy,
shark-tooth seas.

my mind is a millstone
dragging me beneath.
they bored holes in all
the lifeboats. frigid
water numbs both head
and heart. atrophy.

whether waking trapped between
restless dreams in knotted, sweaty
sheets or fighting fascists
in the city streets, everywhere i look
i see no justice, no peace.
constant war. searching
for self-love in the rising
tide of violence. romance
has vanished in a time
where friends become lovers
only to become strangers again.

your hand was the cup
i dipped into a well-spring
of courage, nurturing
and revitalizing.
when your fingertips etched
the word "love" on my wrist
in cursive script, i could've died
amidst that field of bliss.
and when my tongue sampled
your nectar—a faint
haze of bruised star-fruit, bloomed hibiscus,
and Marlboro light cigarettes—
i found freedom hanging on your lips,
a refreshing elixir of hope
to combat my fearful mess.

but now the glass
is more than half-
empty. your absence
has me fashioning
myself a noose
from my anxiety.
so string me up
from the outstretched limbs
of a heartwood tree.
let me die serene,
serenade me with one last glimpse
of your nebulae irises.

this crisis shows
no signs of abating.
and even while i feel
the constant weight of death
bearing down on me, i choose
to live deliberately.
so mute my Twitter feed
if it helps you flee.
sometimes i wish
i was still naïve,
if only to get
some ******* sleep.

the words spilled
out in a rush.
they dove
from the tip
of my tongue
before i could bite
them back:
i told a friend today
that i would die
for this. i have no
sons or daughters,
no cats or dogs,
not even a fish
to provide for. if i
could place my body  
on the line to depose
this fatuous fascist,
then i was obligated
to mount a resistance.
and i almost caught
myself by surprise—
my empathy congealed
to galvanize and, in an instant,
catalyzed conviction.
the tears of a student
wearing a hijab, frightened
to show her face outside,
crystallized in my mind
like a mirror, with the phrase,
"the least of these" scrawled
upon its surface.
the shouts of a student
hoisting a hand-drawn
protest sign, almost as high
as her *******,
set my heart to aching with pride
as we stared down riot cops
on mounted horseback. she stood firm
and did not falter.
and though i choked
back tears when i said
that i would lay
my life down
for a stranger,
at least i can say
my voice
did not falter.